Adventures in Graphica: Using Comics and Graphic Novels to Teach Comprehension, 2-6

Graphica is a medium of literature that integrates pictures and words and arranges them to tell a story or convey information, usually presented in a comic strip, periodical, or book form AKA comics. It's no surprise comics have long been popular with kids and adults; some of our greatest heroes were introduced to us in comic form. Drawing on his own success using graphica with elementary students, literacy coach Terry Thompson introduces reading teachers to this popular medium in Adventures in Graphica: Using Comics and Graphic Novels to Teach Comprehension, Grades 2-6. In his book, Thompson explains how graphica can be an engaging and motivating tool for reluctant readers who often shun traditional texts. He suggests sources of appropriate graphica for the classroom and demonstrates how to fit this medium into the literacy framework and correlates with best practices in comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency instruction.Adventures in Graphica contains numerous, easy-to-replicate, instructional strategies, including examples of how graphic texts can be used to create a bridge and students transfer abstract comprehension strategies learned through comics and graphic novels to traditional texts. It is an excellent roadmap for teachers looking to add graphica to their classrooms.

Terry Thompson is an author, teacher, and consultant living in San Antonio, Texas. He trains teachers of readers and writers in grades K-8. Currently a reading interventionist, Terry has served as a classroom teacher, basic skills teacher, Reading Recovery teacher, and literacy coach. He holds a master's degree in psychotherapy and cognitive coaching and travels throughout the country consulting with classroom teachers and literacy specialists. Terry is the author of Adventures in Graphica (Stenhouse, 2008).